Of Zimbabwe: A Private School Coup

When is a coup not coup? Its when the polite army officials assure you on a TV Press conference on the State Broadcaster

To both our people and the world beyond our borders, we wish to make this abundantly clear this is not a military takeover of government. What the Zimbabwe defence forces is doing is to pacify a degenerating political, social and economic situation in our country which if not addressed may result in violent conflict.

15 November 2017 history is being made

Imagine waking up to a 4am press conference by an army spokesman which basically implies they have taken over the State Broadcaster and programming for the rest of the day is reruns of old liberation songs and the press conference on loop. You can read the full speech by military spokesman Major General SB Moyo here

We live in times of sensational journalism and fake news, rushing to break news without so much as verifying, wanting to be first with the juicy scoop. I have watched some news channels and am not surprised at the number of calls, messages and smses I have received asking me if I am safe..

Depending whom you ask there is a coup is underway or not, soldiers barricading access to some places, airports, boarders, parliament, the president under house arrest, the first lady may or may not have fled the country, several government officials have been detained, the president set to resign and appoint former Vice President as interim president, press conferences are coming…..

Everyone seems to know someone who knows who has it on good authority what exactly is going but everything else is pretty much hush and meanwhile the state broadcaster simply playing revolutionary songs from the war of liberation.

If a coup is going on, then it has been fairly bloodless, thats why on the streets people are calling it a coup that went to private school because so far it has not affected any of the civilians the day has been quiet but pretty much business as usual….

At the back of my head I still worry though, is this a good thing or bad thing, how desperate are we for change that we would welcome military intervention, if my history lessons are correct, no good ever comes from an army rule but then again this is not a coupso they say, normalcy will returnso they say………

How did we get here?

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

-Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

These are unprecedented times we are living in and we can only hope that peace, safety and good old common sense prevail

16 Comments

Glad to hear that seems to be a peaceful coup…if there is such a thing. I know that the situation in Zimbabwe was really desperate, and on Twitter I’ve seen Zimbabweans saying they’re happy that Mugabe’s been ousted. But you’re right…I can’t think of a single instance of military rule being a good thing. I sincerely hope the military is being honest, and that they’ll relinquish their power when a new administration’s been installed (if that’s their plan). I also hope that the new administration is better than the old one!

Sometimes you take what you can get because when you reach rock bottom whats the worst that could happen??? ( well you could dig yourself deeper Ha!)
Its ironic though how suddenly nations are coming out of the woodwork to offer courses of action; try and mediate peaceful transitions when all along they have been turning a blind eye to calls to action to as head of states talk to their fellow head of state………
Still so far peaceful, no new administration as yet
~B